Editing Philosophical analysis (section)

==Method of analysis==
While analysis is characteristic of the analytic tradition in [[philosophy]], what is to be analyzed (the ''analysandum'') often varies. In their papers, philosophers may focus on different areas. One might analyze [[linguistic]] phenomena such as [[sentence (linguistics)|sentences]], or [[psychological]] phenomena such as [[sense data]]. However, arguably the most prominent analyses are written on [[concepts]] or [[proposition]]s and are known as ''conceptual analysis''.<ref>Foley, Richard. (1999). "Analysis". Entry in ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'', second edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.</ref>

[[A.C. Ewing]] distinguished between two forms of philosophical analysis. The first is "what the persons who make a certain statement usually intend to assert" and the second "the qualities, relations and species of continuants mentioned in the statement". As an illustration he takes the statement "I see a tree", this statement could be analysed in terms what the everyday person intends what they say this or it could be analysed metaphysically by asserting [[representationalism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ewing |first1=A.C. |title=Two Kinds of Analysis |journal=Analysis |date=January 1935 |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=60–64|doi=10.1093/analys/2.4.60 }}</ref>

Conceptual analysis consists primarily in breaking down or analyzing concepts into their constituent parts in order to gain knowledge or a better understanding of a particular philosophical issue in which the concept is involved.<ref>Beaney, Michael. (2003). "Analysis". ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' ([http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analysis/ link]).</ref> For example, the [[problem of free will]] in philosophy involves various key concepts, including the concepts of [[freedom]], [[moral responsibility]], [[determinism]], [[Aptitude|ability]], etc. The method of conceptual analysis tends to approach such a problem by breaking down the key concepts pertaining to the problem and seeing how they interact. Thus, in the long-standing debate on whether [[free will]] is compatible with the doctrine of [[determinism]], several philosophers have proposed analyses of the relevant concepts to argue for either [[compatibilism]] or [[incompatibilism]].

A famous example of conceptual analysis at its best is given by [[Bertrand Russell]] in his [[theory of descriptions]]. Russell attempted to analyze propositions that involved ''definite descriptions'', which pick out a unique individual (such as "The tallest spy"), and ''indefinite descriptions'', which pick out a set of individuals (such as "a spy"). In his analysis of definite descriptions, superficially, these descriptions have the standard subject-predicate form of a proposition: thus "The present [[king of France]] is [[baldness|bald]]" appears to be predicating "baldness" of the subject, "the present king of France". However, Russell noted that this is problematic, because there is no present king of France (France is [[France#Republics and Empires (1792-)|no longer a monarchy]]). Normally, to decide whether a proposition of the standard subject-predicate form is true or false, one checks whether the subject is in the extension of the predicate. The proposition is then true if and only if the subject is in the extension of the predicate. The problem is that there is no present king of France, so the present king of France cannot be found on the list of bald things or non-bald things. So, it would appear that the proposition expressed by "The present king of France is bald" is neither true nor false. However, analyzing the relevant concepts and propositions, Russell proposed that what definite descriptions really express are not propositions of the subject-predicate form, but rather they express existentially quantified propositions. Thus, "The present king of France" is ''analyzed'', according to Russell's theory of descriptions, as "There exists an individual who is currently the king of France, there is only one such individual, and that individual is bald." Now one can determine the [[truth value]] of the proposition. Indeed, it is false, because it is not the case that there exists a unique individual who is currently the king of France and is bald, since there is no present king of France.<ref>This explication is only of a part of Russell's theory of descriptions and is quite brief and oversimplified.</ref><ref>[[Bertolet, Rod]] (1999), "Theory of Descriptions", in ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'', second edition, New York: Cambridge University Press</ref>